


Fire of the Mountain

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: The Travel Collection: Drabbles, Snippets, and Supershorts [43]
Category: Criminal Minds, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2017-12-13 13:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are the children of the fiery mountain - chaos, knowledge, and fertility.</p><p>Chaos fought the old order, and sought new paths, and paid for the life of her host with her own. Her name was Jolinar.</p><p>Knowledge sought to learn all he could of all life, and was captured by his enemies for the sake of his brother. He became Tages.</p><p>Fertility brought change to the very fabric of the universe, and was struck down for it, though he escaped with his life. He is Baal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pele

**Author's Note:**

> A Stargate AU which leaves canon mostly intact, and revolves around a goa'uld queen who took on the name Pele. She has somewhat different tactics than the System Lords for gaining power, and among her children are Baal, Jolinar, and Tages.

She is power, fiery goddess of the mountain, before who all shadows are banished. Her sons are fertility and wisdom, who carry the fire into the dark places beyond the stars. One of their own, the brightest and strongest and best-loved among their young men, offers to be the vessel for the younger. The older already has a vessel, bred for the purpose, and uses that one to take him from their home.

Memory fades, and even the best loved of the gods die, but the story is danced and chanted, and lives on over generations. The sons are not forgotten, and the goddess is worshiped at her mountain, and stories become legends. Until the younger son returns, bloodied and beaten, with only a loyal woman to guard his back. His brother is missing, vanished among the stars, and he is hunted.

His mother takes him back, and folds him in her arms. Welcomes the woman as a daughter, and soothes their hurts. For the dark has sharp blades, and weapons greater than the simple ones borne by their people. Weapons that will be met with their goddess's fire, in retribution for their ill-treatment of her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "dark".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Not Always the Absence of Light](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/951873).


	2. Flash of Steam

Water flashes to steam where it meets the slowly creeping mass of molten rock, the pouring rain doing some little to turn aside the river from the village that lays abandoned ahead of it. It won't be enough, and the wooden buildings will go up in flames before their charred skeletons are buried under a new sheet of rock. The villagers themselves are safely gone, moved to the far side of the island, where the jungle is untouched by the eruption.

It is a part of life here, and for all that the humans of the planet revere their goddess of the mountain, the goddess of fire, they do not fear her for the acts of the mountain upon which she lives. They do not blame her when it erupts or when it destroys their villages - for what cares a goddess for the homes of her people when she does not even protect her own palace? One she has rebuilt more than once, if never in quite the same place each time.

So long as the people themselves live, they will not cry for their burned villages and lost fields. For their goddess will not allow her people to die, and will not allow their animals to be lost to the mountain's moods, and that is enough for them to know of her love for them, as they love her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "rain".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [A Misty Veil](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1276502).


	3. Memories

For Rossi, everything holds memories of some sort. Most are of life on Earth, of travel through every place on and off the map he could go, of lovers and wives and children and friends. Of being a god, a prince, a scholar, a merchant. Spain and Italy, Rome and Byzantium; favored places he returns to again and again.

Some, though, are of a distant world that he's never seen with his own eyes. They're more sense memories than visual. The sound of rain on a lake, or water splashing over a rapids. The feel of smooth rocks under him - he always thinks under his feet, and Tages corrects him to under his belly, but Rossi's not an aquatic being without legs. Sunlight warm on his back, water against every inch of him, the taste of fish and water insects in a way the human tongue can't actually convey.

One day, he will go there, and he will see the rivers of Tages' homeworld, the ocean and the volcanic islands, the jungles and beaches. Until then, he'll enjoy the wonders and offerings of Earth, and he'll make more memories to associate with every little boring thing that he takes for granted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "rain".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [A Misty Veil](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1276502).


	4. Soft Breezes

Soft breezes off the ocean should soothe, but Pele is in no mood to be soothed. One son injured and brought to his knees, brought home by her daughter's last host. The other son last seen on Earth, and likely captured by those who control the chapa'ai there, after he dared to plead for his brother.

No, she does not want to be soothed at all.

But she can be patient, and wait for her spies to bring her information; humans who will be suspected less, even in this galaxy with the System Lords torn down. Watching and waiting and listening to what her spies tell her, wait for one to make their way to Earth, and to find what has happened to her older son.

Then, she will take her j'affa, her servants, and her ships, and she will find a way to take back what is hers.

A small smile curves her lips as her eyes flash gold. The tau'ri will learn why she is as feared a goddess as she is beloved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "wind".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Sky-Song](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1471349).


	5. Negotiate

JJ had never thought she'd actually see the Stargate, even after being introduced to the program while at the Pentagon. It hadn't even occurred to her that she - and the entire BAU team she had returned to - might go through the Stargate.

But they are the only ones Pele will negotiate with, and though she has not said why, JJ knows it has to be because of Rossi. He's still in an isolation cell at the SGC, and will remain there until they can negotiate a settlement with Pele that will allow teams through the gate to explore in peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "wind".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Sky-Song](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1471349).


	6. Security Measures

Rossi leans back in his favorite chair, under the shade of a sprawling old tree growing in the back yard of his house. He ignores the airman standing at the gate of the new fence installed around his property at the expense of Homeworld Security, as he's ignored his shadows every day since JJ and Aaron had convinced the SGC that it would be better for diplomatic relations if he weren't held in some underground cell. They might even be right - Pele can be petty when she thinks she or those she holds in esteem have been insulted or harmed.

He picks up the book he'd left off reading earlier, and his refilled glass of wine, and returns to the boredom of life under house arrest. At least they haven't tried to confiscate his sarcophagus, though that - as Tages reminded him when they found it still secure - may be because they hadn't defeated the security measures he'd installed around the room, nor convinced Aaron or Emily to open the door for them.

A small smile crosses his face, and he takes another sip of the wine that Emily had brought before this truly had blown up in his face. If he hadn't been constantly monitored, he suspected he'd have been subject to a lecture from Aaron over the sarcophagus and the protections on it responding to Aaron and Emily without Rossi ever having told them about it before hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "tree".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Branching From the Center](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1539051).


	7. Mother

The planet visible through the window of the ship is a blue-and-green ball, with white clouds wrapped around it like a tattered blanket. It's a sight neither Rossi nor Tages has actually seen - Tages had been barely mature, in his j'affa until he could find a host when he first came to Earth, and Rossi's never been off the planet before this.

It's a pity that the first time they see this is also the last time they're going to see Earth. Not the last time they'll see the team, but the last time they'll see Earth.

"You'll be fine, Dave." Aaron is traveling with them, or Rossi wouldn't be watching this sight, but the walls of the brig. It still amuses him that the military is so wary of him. "And so will the team."

"I know." Rossi turns away from the window as the ship begins to move, and sits down at one of the tables. He knows they can survive anywhere - knowledge is everywhere, and they're good at ferreting it out. They'd never expected to leave Earth, though, even once they knew the chapaa'ai had been found and was being used once more. It's been their home for over two thousand years, and neither of them is quite sure what to do now that they've been exiled from home.

Aaron sits across from them, watching them carefully. "You'll be able to come back, eventually." He sounds far more certain of that than Rossi or Tages feel at the moment. "And you know we'll come visit whenever we can."

"I know. It's just weird, leaving Earth behind. Neither of us thinks of anywhere else as home." It had been easier to leave Italy the first time, when they were young and eager to see everything.

 _/When we had an entire world to explore that didn't have any other goa'uld./_ That they'd known about. It had been easy to avoid Hathor once they'd figured out she was there, leaving her locked in her sarcophagus. Seth had been harder, but they'd managed, even as the world became smaller with the advance of technology. _/Now we're being sent back to mother like misbehaving juveniles./_

Rossi chuckles at Tages's pouting tone, giving Aaron a shrug at his raised eyebrow. "Tages isn't looking forward to the family reunion."

_/Jolinar would have been nice. Baal is annoying, but he's not **mother**!/_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Cloud".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [Storms and Sunsets](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/1848918).


	8. Family

Rossi isn't quite certain how to deal with grief, even after two millennia of repeatedly experiencing it. Everytime, it's fresh and painful. Everytime, he finds it hard to walk away from loved ones who are mortal, who die and are buried beneath the earth or burned upon pyres.

Tages is no better, but still, they manage. They walk away from life after life, leave behind wives, lovers, children, grandchildren, friends. Grieve the loss of each of them, and sometimes drift back to see what has become of the families they've left behind. It's how they eventually came to Long Island, became David Rossi.

And for that, they can't grieve, even though it's their last life on Earth. The one where they'd come to the attention of those who could send them away, back to Pele and Baal, and the entire political mess - even messier now - that is the galaxy at large.

Where they've returned to the only family they have that will live as long as they do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Grief".
> 
> Originally posted as part of [The Travel Collection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754), in the chapter [A Cloak of Mourning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/439754/chapters/2183507).

**Author's Note:**

> **OCs for this story/AU:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Tages - the middle of Pele's three acknowledged offspring, who went to Earth in search of a host, and met a human pretending to be a god. He offered him the ability to really play a god, and the human took him up on it, and gave Tages his name. Their current lifetime is David Rossi, and there's a sarcophagus in his basement that they tweak from time to time to reduce some of the psychological side-effects.


End file.
